We, the Citizens for Responsible Government of Racine was created Jan 2010. Our Watchdog mission is to hold local Racine City, County, and RUSD elected officials accountable.
Primarily:
Balance the Budget.
No new Taxes, Fines or Fees.
No new regulations.
crgofracine@tds.net

Friday, November 18, 2011

CRG of Racine is asking the City Council, the Mayor, City Admin Friedel and the city residents to take a good look at Sandy Springs, GA on you tube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8qFvo2qJOU . Looking at Just the City of Racine with 74,000 residents and a budget of 47 Million dollars, and long term debts in excess of 200 Million dollars. Sandy Springs has 94,000 residents and an operating budget of 26.6 Million dollars, with no long term debt at all!! How did they do this? Well first they set up the city with everything "pay as you go" from the beginning. Racine has over the past 150 years gradually grown thru every boom and bust, and has taken over every aspect of private life and business it can get it's fingers around. Now in Racine we have grown to the point that any "cuts" are considered extreme and against the poor or drastic cuts to services. This must stop. One department at a time needs to be outsourced and open to a competitive bids processes. The folks hired by these private company's will be hired at fair market wages and can make arrangements with those private companies to decide if Unionization makes sense or not for each business model. They can determine the value of each employee, from wages to compensation. Eventually we would not need to purchase new street sweeping equipment, Garbage trucks, Lawnmowers and assorted orange painted vehicles. Even the library can be run, much like the Zoo is currently. The private companies will buy those items of equipment and will provide insurance, licensing, training, etc. for their staffs. It will take some time to pay down our debt but if we could implement all of this immediately we could pay off our 200 Million in about 10 years! Including reducing the 31 Million dollars in our reserve account to about 5 Mil. With no tax increases and ZERO reductions in services to the residents!

It's important to note: CRG of Racine is not calling for privatizing the Fire or Police forces..neither did Sandy Springs.

To City administrator Tom Friedel Please look carefully into this idea and lets start ASAP with the Trash/Recycling service. (Caledonia and Mt Pleasant are already doing this). Next snow plow services, and then Springtime lets start on the Park workers. With 6 Salaried positions opening up in 2012, it'll be easy to eliminate those positions or look at mergers with the County.

Sandy Springs can run it's city government with 14 employees! That includes the 7 part-time Alderman, the Mayor and a City Administrator!